Billy Eichner is saying “never say never” when it comes to reviving his popular game show Billy on the Street.
During a recent interview with Josh Horowitz for his Happy Sad Confused podcast, where he was promoting his audio memoir Billy on Billy, the comic actor reflected on the “second, third life” the game series has experienced on social media.
“It’s crazy. It has sustained in a very unexpected way,” he said. “It’s one of those things that you cannot plan for.”
The last time the Bros actor and writer revived the format was for a get-out-the-vote campaign with Will Ferrell for 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. “That helped,” Eichner remarked sarcastically. “We tried. Wish more people had tried.”
He continued, “For a while, I was like: ‘I can never do it! I have to draw a line in the sand.’ But people love it, and if you look on the internet, which can be so snarky, including about me, but under Billy on the Street videos, that’s like a different thing.”
“The people who get it, it’s like their favorite thing. And they’re always: ‘Please do more. Please bring the show back. The world is so awful. Please do this.’ And I am very touched by that, and I want to honor that. That’s a very rare thing. It does not give me, as an actor, the creative satisfaction anymore because I’ve been doing it for so long. And it’s not aligned with who I really wanted to be as an artist because it’s not acting in the traditional sense,” he said, while adding that he is “proud of” the show.
Billy on the Street aired for three seasons from 2011 to 2014 on Fuse, and for two additional seasons on truTV. Various short-form web episodes followed later on Funny or Die and as part of a promotional campaign for 2022’s Bros. Select clips of the program, which feature the beloved segment “For A Dollar,” have continued to go viral on platforms like TikTok.
“For me, I want to have a more eclectic career. But what I’m always trying to sort of figure out is, ‘Oh, OK, I can do both.’ My therapist would want me to say that. She was like: ‘You can do everything!’ I’m never going to do half-hour episodes of Billy on the Street again, but we’re always kind of talking about what it could look like. And I don’t know what the answer to that is, but never say never. I don’t know,” he concluded.
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